Religious Literacy Project Builds Understanding

BRINGING UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION TO THE WORLD

Harvard Divinity School's Religious Literacy Project (RLP) is at the forefront of the effort to increase global religious understanding through the revolution in digital technology and online education. Through massive open online courses produced for the HarvardX platform, the RLP brings deep knowledge of religion to hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

THE FOUR PRINCIPLES OF RELIGIOUS LITERACY

1) RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION IS DISTINCT FROM THE CRITICAL STUDY OF RELIGION.

2) RELIGIONS ARE INTERNALLY DIVERSE.

3) RELIGIONS CHANGE AND EVOLVE OVER TIME.

4) RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES ARE EMBEDDED IN ALL AREAS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY.

PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE PEACE

The Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI) brings together scholars from the RLP and Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative to study the role that religious communities play in violent conflict—and in promoting sustainable peace. Part of the One Harvard Sustainable Peace Initiative, the RCPI’s approach produces new insights for leaders in the field of conflict resolution.

ENABLING RELIGIOUSLY LITERATE LEADERS IN ALL FIELDS

The RLP established the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative (RLPI) to address this need for religious knowledge among leaders in critical fields. The RLPI hosts symposia that connect scholars of religion with practitioners in a range of important fields.

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST RELIGION COURSE

The massive open online course “World Religions Through Their Scriptures” brings together leading scholars in the world’s major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism. After launch in 2016, the course attracted an international, multicultural audience of over 225,000 participants from 192 countries who examined sacred texts, considered their interpretation, and learned how religions influence—and are influenced by—the diverse political and cultural contexts in which they exist.

EMPOWERING EDUCATORS

One of the most effective ways to address the rise in social hostility is to foster religious literacy. And the most effective way to foster religious literacy is to provide K–12 and community college educators with the tools to help students think critically, creatively, and constructively about religion. The RLP’s Religious Literacy and Education Initiative provides teachers throughout the country with the knowledge and resources they need to transform the way students understand how religions function in human experience in both historical and contemporary contexts.

RELIGIOUS LITERACY PROJECT BY THE NUMBERS

MORE THAN 225,000 PARTICIPANTS FROM 192 COUNTRIES ENROLLED IN HARVARDX MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSE ‘WORLD RELIGIONS THROUGH THEIR SCRIPTURES’

739K UNIQUE VISITORS TO RLP WEBSITE

55 MAJOR UNIVERSITIES, NEWS OUTLETS, NGOS, GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES,AND MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANIES HAVE JOINED AND ACTIVELY PARTICIPATED IN RLPI SYMPOSIA

THE RLP ENGAGES WITH PROFESSIONALS FROM 60 DIFFERENT ORGANIZATIONS, INCLUDING: BORDER ACTION NETWORK, BOSTON UNIVERSITY, CATHOLIC CHARITIES BOSTON, CENTRO PRESENTE, CREATIVE ARTISTS AGENCY, HUMANE BORDERS,THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, MIT, NPR, OXFAM, UNICEF, U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PATROL, VIACOM, THE WASHINGTON POST